The Human Face of InfoGov

The Human Face of InfoGov

Solution marketeers and alarmist analysts love to flash the red lights of litigation support and audit compliance when making the case for information governance. But the problem with this is that neither of these reasons speak to the one Really Important Motive that lies at the end of the infogov path:

To better serve/enable/empower people, be they customers, prospects, employees, or other interested parties.

The funeral home that couldn’t find the pre-paid paperwork and, after being provided with my carbon copy, defended itself by saying, “oh, that was done under the old owners.” As if that justified the days-long halt they called to making the final arrangements.

The same funeral home that couldn’t find another client’s file folder and sent two staffers on an obvious office search, during which they loudly asked within earshot of everybody present, “has anyone seen the [family name] file?” Privacy? We don’t need no stinking privacy.

The hospital ICU nurse who missed a critical bit of medical information because it was recorded on a piece of paper “that is a different size and color than I’ve ever seen before.” Apparently reading is not fundamental.

The rehab facility whose blood-testing machine returned a result so far from normal that the technician thought the patient must be dying or dead – only to discover that he was exhibiting no symptoms at all. Couldn’t be that there was something wrong with the machine, could it? Nah – better to rush the tube-fed, dialysis patient to the emergency room instead.

I could go on, but I won’t for fear of offending more sensibilities than just my own. Suffice to say that these infogov-related incidents were painful for the family and disruptive to the institutions involved, which then had to spend time and effort addressing what went wrong.

Oh the Humanity!

I’d like to say that this story has a happy ending, that the funeral home, the hospital, the rehab facility learned their lesson, but they didn’t. It’s clear to me that the powers-that-be in each of these places – as is the case in so many – are more concerned with being right than with doing the right thing. The shame of it is that they could make some relatively small changes in their information-handling and make life better for both themselves and their constituents. But I’m sure they won’t.

And that’s a shame, because, to me, THAT is what infogov is really all about.

Steve Weissman helps you do information right by bringing order and discipline to your governance and process practices. Principal Consultant at Holly Group and Co-Founder of the Information Coalition (now merged with ARMA International), he leverages a proven proprietary methodology to optimize everything from strategic planning and needs assessment to vendor selection and user adoption.
He is, in short, The Info Gov Guy™, furthering best-practices for finding, leveraging, and protecting your business-critical information.
A member of the AIIM Company of Fellows and holder of numerous industry designations, he can be reached at steve@hollygroup.com or 617-383-4655.